I met Sue (not her real name) about nineteen years ago. We were both actively volunteering for Resolve, the infertility organization. She had a three year old son; I had a one year old daughter. We both had served in nearly every capacity in Resolve on the state level, counseled hundreds of couples about alternative routes to becoming parents, spoke at dozens of events, run support groups and everything else the organization needed. Eventually we both sat at the board level, sharing responsibilities. We both loved what we were doing.
We became fast friends. Once a month, Sue and her husband and son came to my house for dinner, or we would go to hers. One time when we went to her house, she showed me the Internet and instant messaging on AOL. I was mesmerized by it. I wanted it for my house, too, so I could talk to Sue that way, instead of paying the long distance phone bill, and because it was cool. (Yes, then we had long distance bills. It seems so long ago and yet doesn't seem that long ago at all.) She showed me, even, how she had created fake name profiles so she could spy on other people. She was ahead of her time with this Internet thing. She could see it would be the future.
We lived about thirty minutes apart. We talked on the phone once a day, at least. We shared the joys and tribulations of raising our kids, our luck over being able to parent after infertility, the pain we saw as others went through it. We traveled together across the country to national Resolve events. One Saturday a month, I would get her and drive to our Resolve meeting after picking up bagels for all of the other board members, we chatted the whole way, never running out of things to talk about.
She decided to adopt another child; I was going through infertility treatment once again to have another baby. She supported me when I went through a heart breaking miscarriage; she'd been through four. I cheered her on as she searched the country for a pregnant woman who would be a match, and helped her steel herself for months of uncertainty when she found a birth mother. I went to visit her just days after she brought her daughter home.
But something in the friendship started to crack. We were jealous of each other, I think, for different reasons. We began to fight. There were tears and lengthy phone and instant message conversations. We misunderstood each other. We hurt each other. Eventually, one day in late 1998, she hung up on me and never called back. I wasn't sorry. The friendship had taken its toll; her anger at me was seeping into my daily life too much. I had two children by then, a baby who needed to be nursed and a pre schooler who needed my undivided attention.
Over the years, I thought about Sue from time to time. I go to the mall near her house occasionally, eat at some of the restaurants there with various friends. I would wonder if I was going to see her. Would it be awkward if we ran into each other? What would I say? I would think about that for half a minute as I pulled into the parking lot and then forget about it.
Once in a while, what with Google, I would search her name. Nothing would ever come up. It seemed odd, and I would think about that for half a minute, too, knowing how much Sue loved the Internet, understood its power way before anyone else did, and then figure she was probably using some false name, like she had on Instant Messaging. Then I would forget again.
Last week I decided to look her up on Facebook. She wasn't there. She definitely would be on Facebook, I thought. She would love it. She would love posting pictures of her kids. She would love everything about it. So I typed in her kids' names. I knew those and their birth dates, too. I found her son but he hid his friend connections from public view.
I found her daughter. The last time I'd seen her, she'd been a baby. Now she is eighteen, getting ready to graduate high school. I clicked on her daughter's name and her main page popped on the screen. Her banner shot was of a cemetery, a grave marker bearing my friend's name, her birth date, declaring her as the best sister, wife, mother, and friend, and a date of death. She died eight years ago at the age of forty six. Her daughter made a reference to her mother being out of pain, at least.
Sue had always been a hypochondriac. She thought every pain signaled a heart attack or cancer or some other impending doom. Somehow, I guess, she was ahead of her time not only with the Internet, but with whatever illness killed her, too.
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